It is reported that PetroChina loss from its oil refinery business this year may top CNY 50 billion if the price of refined oil products stays at the same level till the end of the year.

According to PetroChina, it would have to pay an additional CNY 29 billion of resources tax annually should oil prices stay at around USD 100 per barrel.

Mr Jiang Jiemin chairman of PetroChina said PetroChina supports the reform of the refined oil pricing mechanism and said conditions are currently not appropriate for enterprises to set the prices.

He said that the priority would be to perfect the existing pricing mechanism of refined oil and strengthen the execution of the mechanism.

PetroChina lost CNY 23.36 billion from its refinery business in the first half. During the same period of last year and it earned a profit of CNY 2.99 billion from this business.

(Sourced from Shanghai Securities News)